Movie  2001
 The Tailor of Panama      Back      Home
Harry Pendel: The way I see it, we all have a dream of ourselves, that we could be more than we are. Well, Pendel and Braithwaite are here to help you realize that dream, in the Savile Row tradition.
Harry Pendel: Oh, yes. The lies. Very, very sorry about the lies. Louisa, I never did work in Saville Row, did I? Not as such. I learned the tailoring in prison. I burned down my Uncle Benny's warehouse to help him out. And then when I done my time, Uncle Benny, he gives me my portion, sends me out here so I can't get into trouble. I pretended he was Arthur Braifwaite. You see, lying's what we do in prison, luv. It's instead of love, really. You tell a thing the way it ought to be because that's so much better than how it is. Well, it's that bad. If you follow me.
Louisa Pendel: Why didn't you just tell me from the start?
Harry Pendel: [sobbing] Because I fell in love with you, my princess, and I knew that I wasn't good enough for you. Not as I stood.
Louisa Pendel: Harry, you are such a fool.
Sarah Pendel: [Coming downstairs] Dad, you promised to tell me a story. Where were you?
Harry Pendel: Oh, Sarah, I'm so sorry.
Sarah Pendel: No need to cry about it, Dad.
Mark Pendel: [Coming downstairs] Hi, Dad.
Sarah Pendel: Hi, Mum.
Harry Pendel: What do you want me to do?
Louisa Pendel: What do I want you to do? What you always do.
[pregnant pause]
Louisa Pendel: Make breafast.
Mark Pendel: Can we have pancakes?
Michelangelo 'Mickie' Abraxas: Look at us. Look at us! We got everything God needed to make paradise. And what do we do? We sell each other. We sell our country. We sell it all away!
Louisa Pendel: Do you love her?
Harry Pendel: Yes, I love her. But I have never *made* love to her.
Andrew 'Andy' Osnard: You're right... it WAS open. Just TIGHT from lack of use.
Harry Pendel: When they took Noriega out, I said to myself, Harry, they got Ali Baba, but they missed the forty thieves.
Michelangelo 'Mickie' Abraxas: The only good men left in Panama City are you and me. That's all, you and me.
Gen. Dusenbaker: There's a missing star on our flag, gentlemen. It looks to me as if God is giving us a second chance here.
Luxmore: Their leading man is one Michaelangelo Abraxas, known to many, I am sure, as the elusive Pimpernel of the Popular Movement Against General Manuel Noriega. Abraxas is a man of proven integrity, skilled at clandestine warfare. His second in command, but, I submit, his equal in skill and resolution, is code-named "Marta," another veteran of the anti-Noriega resistance. For cover purposes, she is employed as a counter receptionist by our own Panamanian head agent, the redoubtable "Bucket."
Elliot: [Later] Do you think, personally, this Abraxas is Presidential material?
Cavendish: Oh... Scotty...
Luxmore: Abraxas is world-class. Courageous. Unsullied. Incorruptible. A man to dream of when you're shaping nations.
[Cut to Abraxas packing an armful of liquor bottles as his escape "supplies."]
Harry Pendel: Welcome to Panama, Casablanca without heroes.
Louisa Pendel: Why?
Harry Pendel: I don't know. I thought it was a game.
Uncle Benny: Harry boy, I've told you time and again, a man who tells the truth is bound to be found out sooner or later. Try sincerity, that's a virtue. But truth, it's an affliction!
Andy: Come and dance.
Francesca Deane: Oh God. You don't DANCE as well, do you?
Andy: As well as what?
Michelangelo 'Mickie' Abraxas: I couldn't do it again. No more prison. They break you in there. You... you get so much courage in life; when it's gone, it's spent. I got none left.
Andrew 'Andy' Osnard: Don't be a cunt, Harry, we're made for each other. You've got the debts, I've got the money. Where's your patriotism?
Harold 'Harry' Pendel: I had it out in prison, without an anesthetic.
Harry Pendel: I never lied to you, Marta, you know that. I didn't tell you everything, but what I told you was true. There's only so many people you can do that to. Tell the truth. Other people are different. They need to be...
Marta: ...tailored.
Harry Pendel: ...helped.
Andrew 'Andy' Osnard: [Trying to make his getaway] Get out of my way. Don't be bloody annoying, Harry!
Maltby: I'll walk you to your plane.
Andrew 'Andy' Osnard: Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?
Maltby: I think it desperately unlikely.
Harry Pendel: Do you know what the poor call those? The Cocaine Towers. And our 85 banks? The laundrettes.
Harry Pendel: At the table, bunch of gentlemen from the loyal opposition. They come much cheaper, naturally.
Andrew 'Andy' Osnard: Are you pulling my pisser?
Harold 'Harry' Pendel: Not unless the President's pulling mine!
Stormont: Noriega formed these so-called Dignity Battalions. Dingbats. They were to beat the dignity out of anyone remotely critical of Noriega. It was Dr. Frankenstein, George Bush, who created this monster when he was head of the CIA. And when Noriega's drugrunning and brutality got too much, even for the CIA, it was George, now President Bush, who decided to take him out. And just to make sure, they firebombed a big chunk of the old city. Sadly, that's where the anti-Noriega rebels were. The handful that Noriega hadn't banged up already. So no more opposition, silent or otherwise. Burnt, scattered, fled.
Harry Pendel: And I didn't finish his suit, it would've given him back his dignity, he wouldn't have shot himself in it.
Michelangelo 'Mickie' Abraxas: You know what I would do if I were president of Panama?
Andrew 'Andy' Osnard: What?
Michelangelo 'Mickie' Abraxas: I'd shoot every fuck in this room.
Andrew 'Andy' Osnard: It's dark and lonely work, Harry - like oral sex, but someone has to do it.
Michelangelo 'Mickie' Abraxas: Never on our knees.
Harry Pendel: Right.
Michelangelo 'Mickie' Abraxas: Or on our asses.
Amazon.com
Tailors are the secret-keepers of the power elite; customize fine apparel for the rich and powerful, and you'll hear things only whispered in the halls of government. Such is the sly conceit of The Tailor of Panama, coadapted by John le Carré from his own novel, and directed by John Boorman with a delicious spin on the traditions of the spy genre. As British MI-6 agent Andy Osnard, Pierce Brosnan qualifies as James Bond's black-sheep sibling, viewing women only in terms of sexual conquest and conducting spy business by his own flexible set of rules. Banished to Panama to pay for recent indiscretions, Andy connects with Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), a British ex-convict who's built a lucrative cover as tailor to Panama's highest officials. With the coveted Panama canal now under local control, Andy's arrived to see what Harry knows about the canal's pending multinational sale.

As Andy observes, Panama is "Casablanca without heroes," and that's precisely how Boorman depicts it: a melting pot of greed, ambition, and backroom maneuvering, where Andy can bed an embassy official (Catherine McCormack) while squeezing information from Harry, who concocts a phony "silent opposition" that puts British and American forces on full alert. Harry's wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) is pulled into the scenario by Andy's ruthless scheming, and The Tailor of Panama reveals how a simple fabrication can provoke trigger-happy forces around the globe. Part comedy and part political horror thriller--with a tragic supporting role for Brendan Gleason, from Boorman's The General--this is old-fashioned spy stuff made new by le Carré's inventive plotting and keen ear for the dialogue of rogues. --Jeff Shannon